Finance Watch Publishes List of International Bankers Calling for Glass-Steagall

28 July 2012

(LPAC) Finance Watch, an international association formed in 2010 by 22 members of the European Parliament to reform financial regulation and present proposals to the public and to lawmakers, has published a list of leading bankers who have called for Glass-Steagall.

Its website, http://www.finance-watch.org, states on July 26: "Here is a list of senior bankers calling for the complete separation of retail from investment banks. Some, such as former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill, have reversed their previous opposition in what the Financial Times has dubbed an epic conversion. They join the chorus of commentators calling for
simple, structural reform that goes beyond the US’s Volcker and UK’s Vickers proposals. Some of the more notable names are below...

** Sandy Weill, former CEO Citigroup and principal driver behind repeal of Glass-Steagall "What we should probably do is go and split up investment
banking from banking, have banks be deposit takers, have banks make commercial loans and real estate loans, have banks do something that’s not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that’s not too big to fail." 25 July 2012, CNBC

** Andrea Leadsom, British Conservative MP and former senior banker at Barclay "The issue of a complete separation of retail and investment banking should also return to the agenda. It is right that the government should be the ultimate guarantor of retail deposits but that guarantee should not extend to high-risk transactions." 20 July 2012, www.andrealeadsom.com

**Luigi Zingales, professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business "Over the last couple of years, however, I have revised my views and I have become convinced of the case for a mandator separation." 10 June 2012, Financial Times

** Peter Hambro, chairman of Petropavlosk and scion of Hambros Bank family "They should never have been together and now they should be split, completely." 6 July 2012, Evening Standard

** Lord (Paul) Myners, former British Labour MP and City Minister, former CEO, Gartmore Group "We need to go to what is known as a Glass-Steagall model, which is a complete separation." 4 July 2012, Channel 4 News

** Financial Times editorial "We are now ready to go further. For all the diversification benefits, the cultural tensions between investment and retail
banking can only be resolved by totally separating the two, on formal Glass-Steagall-style lines." 3 July 2012, ft.com

** Terry Smith, CEO Tullet Prebon "The UK and the US must enact a Glass-Steagall Act and separate retail and investment banks. The only people who seem to have lobbied against such separation are bankers. Why are we
listening to them?" 1 July 2012, Guardian

** John Reed, former Citigroup chairman "There is no societal benefit from integrating them [investment and retail banks]." December 2011, Financial World

** Lord (Nigel) Lawson, former British Conservative MP and chancellor during big bang (the UKs period of rapid deregulation in the 1980s) "...[investment bank taking risks on the back of the taxpayer guarantee is a great scandal. I myself would have liked to see a complete separation between retail banking and investment banking." 11 April 2011, BBC

["Taxpayers should not be held responsible for the potential risks of speculative financial market transactions", said Uwe Fröhlich, President of the Association of German mutual banks. Insofar it seems fair to him "to think about separating investment banking from commercial banking".] 18 October 2011, Deutschland Today. [agg]